Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Baseball as it Should Be

The World Series is supposed to be about the two best teams in each league duking it out for supreme bragging rights.

Often, this fails in favor of two teams that simply get hot at the right time, but this year, it is, in fact, the league's two best teams going at it.

In one corner, you have the team from Philadelphia. A group of "gamers" as some have described them, defending World Champions, a National League team with a lineup that mashes on an American League score.

In the other corner, the Bronx Bombers. Despite the motley of expensive free agents, this team also boasts one of the highest percentage home-grown rosters in the league. The team that took off in May has flat-out dominated since then, cruising to its best record since the record-breaking 1998 season.

Both teams have lost just two games in the postseason, both have survived playing in utterly frigid conditions in New York and Colorado, and both have their own lofty expectations.

While it may have been easy to pick the Yankees over the Twins or the Phillies over the Dodgers, predicting a World Series winner is another thing entirely. I am a die-hard Yankees fan, but I would be shocked if the series went less than six games. These teams are, simply put, too good.

This, though, is how it should be.

A World Series, by definition, should go to seven games. It should have a bit of everything (except blown calls, of course), and it should make you love the game all that more.

The Phillies-Yankees series holds that promise: baseball as it should be.

****

More later, including a live chat at 7.30 pm, so make sure you're there!